First published on February 25, 2004, in the Chicago Free
Press.
When some opponents of gay marriage try to argue for their view,
after they ritually condemn homosexuality they will claim that gay
marriage "damages society" and "undermines marriage" in some
unspecified way and end by postulating deplorable consequences of
gay marriage: "If we allow gay marriage, then people will want to
practice polygamy and marry their pets."
Well, when our opponents are reduced to arguing that gay
marriage is bad because it might lead to something else, we have
won the argument. When they have to change the subject, it means
they do not have any good arguments against gay marriage
itself.
You would think if the religious right were really so worried
about polygamy - and whatever they privately think they do argue
that way - they would use their energy to a) explain clearly how
gay marriage could plausibly lead to polygamy and b) explain
clearly why polygamy is bad. Yet they make little effort to do
either.
Perhaps that is because nothing in the principles supporting gay
marriage provides any support for the legalization of any other
type of relationship, much less polygamy And the legalization of
polygamy seems very unlikely anyway in modern societies like the
U.S.
Over the centuries, heterosexual marriage shifted from being a
merger contract between families or an economic and sexual
arrangement to assure creation of legal heirs and caretakers for
one's old age, and came to be understood primarily as a
companionate relationship of mutual caring between two people who
love each other.
But once the affectional bond became the central element of
marriage, the rationale for limiting it to pairs who would
procreate lost its force. Gays want nothing more than to
participate in "traditional marriage" thus understood - marriage
for the benefit of the marrying partners: meshing a person's life
with someone they love.
Gays are not arguing that people should be able to have whatever
marital arrangement they want. They argue only that everyone should
have access to marriage as it is now commonly understood. Nor are
gays arguing for any legal rights other people do not have. They
argue that they are uniquely denied a right everyone else already
has - the right to marry someone they love.
By contrast, an advocate of legal polygamy cannot argue that he
(or she) is seeking anything akin to traditional marriage - unless
the Old Testament is considered "traditional." Nor can he argue he
is being denied a right that everyone else has. He would have to
argue that he desires and deserves a new right that no one
currently has. Perhaps that argument could be made but it has not
been so far.
Now, if gay marriage opponents wish to argue that it could lead
to polygamy, they also have to explain why polygamy is undesirable.
After all, polygamy survived for centuries in many parts of the
world and lingers in most Muslim countries today. In fact, the
religious right has the causal relationship backward. Gay marriage
does not lead to polygamy. Polygamy, however indirectly, led to gay
marriage.
In any case, while there are some interesting arguments against
legal polygamy, none of which would be weakened by gay marriage, it
is more relevant to point out that polygamy was a response to
certain pre-modern social conditions but that modern egalitarian,
capitalist and individualist societies create little need for and
considerable pressure against polygamy.
Polygamy flourished in primitive, male-dominated societies where
women had little freedom of movement, education or employment
skills and were dependent on men, where inequalities of wealth
allowed some men to acquire several wives while others had none,
and/or where male deaths in frequent military campaigns sharply
reduced the number of potential husbands.
But in modern societies, women have equal access to advanced
education and economic independence, social value apart from the
status or wealth of a husband, and an equal male-female ratio. It
is hard to imagine many women in the contemporary U.S. cheerfully
welcoming competing wives or voluntarily becoming a second, third,
or fourth wife.
In addition, women in third world nations - and southern Utah -
who have left polygamous households describe them as rife with
favoritism, rivalries, domestic abuse, and the like. It is hard to
imagine a modern, educated woman entering or staying in such a
family environment.
Nor would polygamy seem desirable for most males. Assuming an
equal male-female population, a man who married two or more women
would deprive one or more heterosexual men of the pleasures of a
romantic, sexual and domestic life with a wife.
In fact, we may say that just as same-sex marriage is good
because it allows more people to enjoy the pleasures and benefits
of marriage, polygamy is undesirable because it deprives some
people of the pleasures and benefits of marriage.
In short: None of the principles supporting gay marriage offers
support for polygamy. Rather the opposite. And polygamy is not
likely to be widely advocated because - unlike same-sex marriage -
it answers no needs and removes no inequities in modern
societies.